After losing LS elections, Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra enters RS poll fray
Mumbai, Jun 13: Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra on Thursday filed nomination papers as the NCP candidate for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections, days after she lost the Lok Sabha polls from Baramati.
Incidentally, barring leaders from the NCP, no politician from the Ajit Pawar-led party's allies in the ruling Mahayuti -- the BJP and the Shiv Sena -- was present when Sunetra Pawar filed her nomination at the Vidhan Bhavan in south Mumbai.
Senior NCP leaders like Rajya Sabha member Praful Patel, Maharashtra cabinet minister Chhagan Bhujbal, party's state unit president and Lok Sabha MP-elect Sunil Tatkare and legislative assembly deputy speaker Narhari Zirwal were present at the filing of the nomination.
Bhujbal said though he was keen on contesting the Rajya Sabha polls, he was not upset with Sunetra Pawar’s nomination, which he described as a "collective decision" of the party.
In the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections, Sunetra Pawar lost from the Baramati constituency in Pune district, where her sister-in-law Supriya Sule, the daughter of NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar, registered her fourth consecutive win.
“The NCP has decided to field Sunetra Pawar for the Rajya Sabha elections. Even I was keen on contesting the elections, but during a meeting on Wednesday evening, party leaders finalised her name,” said Bhujbal.
The Rajya Sabha secretariat has notified ten vacancies in the Upper House -- two each in Assam, Bihar and Maharashtra, and one each in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tripura.
These seats have fallen vacant after the sitting members got elected to the Lok Sabha in the just concluded parliamentary polls. Rajya Sabha MPs are elected by MLAs in states.
The Rajya Sabha vacancies arose in Maharashtra after two sitting members -- Piyush Goyal and Udayanraje Bhonsle (both from BJP) -- were elected to the Lok Sabha.
Asked if key posts were going to one family, Bhujbal maintained Ajit Pawar did not decide Sunetra Pawar’s nomination.
“The decision to field Sunetra Pawar was taken by the party’s core group. It was not decided by him (Ajit Pawar) alone. It was a collective decision,” Bhujbal asserted.
Asked whether he was disappointed over not being fielded in the Rajya Sabha polls, the Cabinet minister shot back, “Can you see it on my face? I have learnt to respect collective decision-making and have been doing it for the past 57 years. Be it the Shiv Sena or the NCP, decisions are taken after discussions with people and not as per one person’s will.”
The 76-year-old politician has been in the Shiv Sena and the Congress and joined the NCP when Sharad Pawar formed the party in June 1999. The NCP suffered a split when Ajit Pawar and eight other MLAs, including Bhujbal, joined the Shiv Sena-BJP government in July 2023 as ministers.
Earlier, Bhujbal, a prominent OBC leader, was keen on contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Nashik, but NCP's alliance partner Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde fielded its candidate from the constituency. The seat in North Maharashtra was won by former CM Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT).
The NCP, the BJP and the Shiv Sena are constituents of the ruling Mahayuti alliance.
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Allahabad HC sets aside maintenance order in favour of earning wife, says she didn't tell truth
Prayagraj (PTI): The Allahabad High Court has set aside a lower court order mandating a man to pay maintenance to his estranged wife, observing that she earns her living and did not reveal the true salary in her affidavit.
Justice Madan Pal Singh also allowed a criminal revision petition filed by the man, Ankit Saha.
"A perusal of the impugned judgment indicates that in the affidavit filed before the trial court, the opposite party herself admitted that she is a post-graduate and a web designer by qualification. She is working as a senior sales coordinator in a company and getting a salary of Rs 34,000 per month," the court said in the December 3 order.
"But in her cross-examination, she has admitted that she was earning Rs 36,000 per month. Such an amount for a wife who has no other liability cannot be said to be meagre; whereas the man has the responsibility of maintaining his aged parents and other social obligations," it observed.
The high court observed that the woman was not entitled to get any maintenance from her husband "as she is an earning lady and able to maintain herself".
The man's counsel argued in court that the estranged wife did not reveal the whole truth in the affidavit.
"She claimed herself to be an illiterate and unemployed woman. When the document filed by the man was shown to her before the trial court, she admitted her income during cross-examination. Thus, it is clear that she did not come before the trial court with clean hands," the counsel submitted.
The court, in its order, said, "Cases of those litigants who have no regard for the truth and those who indulge in suppressing material facts need to be thrown out of the court."
It impugned the lower court's February 17 judgment and order, passed by the principal judge of a family court in Gautam Buddh Nagar and allowed the criminal revision petition filed by the man.
